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2014.06.02 - Way Down in the Hole
STRATFORDBURG, NEW YORK 7:00 PM NOW In a struggling fishing community of thousands, one has to take what entertainment one can get sometimes, so when the local stretch of the Hudson River began belching bright, melodious fireworks a week or so ago, it was only a matter of hours before chairs began popping up beside the shore. Not that the townsfolk weren't cautious, of course: a cordon was quickly erected along the river, enforcing a minimum safe distance until further notice. The EPA was called and samples were taken away in little vials that shone like a congregation of captive fireflies. It wasn't their first time visiting Stratfordburg. Back in 2006, when the FGX Energy Corporation finally admitted that it just might know something about the ropey, beige fluid that had been sputtering from taps all over town for days and was forced to shutter its rig on the outskirts of town, several agents were dispatched to the area to assess the lasting impact. While the region received a clean bill of health - eventually - its fishing industry never quite recovered. Even with the cordons - even with everyone scrambling to stock up on bottled water, just in case - a week of being enchanted, rather than frustrated by the river was a welcome change from the years of difficult choices and shuttering businesses following 2006. FGX took its time paying settlements, and there are plenty who'd swear to anyone who'll listen that they have yet to get everything that's coming to them; a week of watching colorful lights dance over and beneath the water doesn't quite make up for years of trouble, but it is a nice distraction. The fish bathing in the swirling eddies of light that have have come to increasingly dominate - and illuminate - the river, haven't been seen since the spectacle began; besides the ban, spotting them in that radiant soup at all has been nigh on impossible, and even those creatures that might otherwise spend some of their time outside of the river - the toads, the salamanders, and so on - have gone unseen. After the first couple of days, ghost stories began to spread along the river bank, of dark shapes glimpsed just beneath the surface for moments that never seem to come twice, of lost, beloved pets washed up half-eaten on the shore, and worse still; like the dozens of other tall tales that tended to get passed around the area, they usually came with laughs, over beers and campfires. When a stretch of the river begins to boil without even the slightest warning, a few teenaged boys near the cordon look at each other questioningly; doesn't one of the stories start this way? They soon take to tentatively high fiving and watching to see what happens next, while murmurs of concern, confusion, and even excitement begin burbling among other rivergoers close enough to see it--which, as the phenomenon begins to expand across more of the water, ends up being most of them. The steady stream of lights rocketing into the sky continues, soundless except for the gentle, airy twinkling that accompanies their inevitable explosions into various shapes, colours and abstractions. Before the effect can reach both banks of the river, a sizable, almond shaped eye giving off enough deep blue light to be seen through the bright swirls around it slides opens a ways beneath the roiling bubbles, gazing up at the darkening sky. And then another opens, angled a little more towards the crowd on the shore. And then another, and another, until there are dozens of them taking in the surface world. By that time, rivergoers are already well into the process of freaking the hell out and dialing 911; some are sticking it out with cameras and smart phones a (hopefully) safe distance away, but most are scrambling to try and pack up or get home. Or just get home; they can always buy more chairs, but no amount of money will fix being eaten by river monsters. One by one, the array of eyes blink, and then they collectively shudder before rapidly shifting towards the surface. To anyone with a keen enough eye(or lens), it's apparent even before the eyes breach the water: it isn't a school of monsters, just one big one with eyes dotting the length of its slick, serpentine black body. Even the diaphanous membranes of the the sweeping, wing-like fins fluttering on its sides to propel it upwards sport a few. Numerous yellow spots cover many of the eyeless spaces, and its body is exposed to the air, a few of them glow blindingly bright for a split-second before launching bursts of light that explode into brilliant star fields just over the shore, then set the grass and trees alight with golden fire as it settles in a twinkling shower. All in all, it's who knows how many tons of thrashing, confused, pseudonatural bulk; its body continues for many feet past the fins, terminating somewhere beneath the surface in a broad fishtail edged with bone spurs. It still hasn't entirely emerged, and it might take a little while before it does. Its head, however - shovel-shaped, with rows of saber-sharp teeth in its mouth, clusters of eyes on either side - is fully visible, with little more than a canyon of gills serving as a division between it and the rest of the writhing whole. As the creature's upper body weaves wildly to and fro, its mouth snaps open and shut; sometimes, it emits a piercing, warbling roar that sends shockwaves rippling across the shore. Other times, it just breathes gouts of golden fire; the one bright spot is that the fires seem more intent on clinging wherever they land, burning it until there's nothing left and then burning some more, rather than spreading to consume the surroundings--or the brave(foolish) people still hanging around in the hopes of scoring a few 'Like's with the footage later. The town might yet have a prayer; all it needs is someone with the power to answer it in time. High enough above the town so as to be nothing more than a speck to most people Gabriel has been flying in his red dragon persona, enjoying the spectacle as much as any of the people watching the 'fireworks' from the shores of the river. When the eyes start popping up under the luminosity in the water he's in a better position than most to see what's really happening so by the time people have started scrambling he's already in freefall. As he falls the dragon melts into a blob of golden ectoplasm with a book of some sort set in the middle of it only to become an human adolescent a second later, with said book in his hands. As Gabriel falls towards the ground he frantically flips the pages in his photo album, fighting the winds to find what he's looking for. About 1000 feet from the ground he focuses on the picture of a hawk, melts into the blob of ectoplasm again and a few seconds later reforms into the hawk he'd been looking at with the photo album now clutched in its talons. The hawk dives down the last 800 feet or so, landing in an isolated area of the river shore, away from the monster breathing fire everywhere and reforms into the young man again. Picking up his photo album once more he start riffling through pages full with pictures of heroes, animals, mythological creatures, and more. Finally he settles on one picture and sighs as he looks at it, "This is going to suck... But its the only thing I have that can handle something like that." He grumbles under his breath. After focusing on his selected image for a second his shape melts back into the golden blob, looking like a man-sized amoeba. But this time the change is much slower as the blob grows, and grows, and grows. the photo album on the ground at its 'feet' showing an image of Godzilla spewing his atomic breath at a hapless skyscraper... When it comes to monsters from beneath the waters there is few more familiar with them than Namor of Atlantis. That is more than likely why the Infinite sent him to investigate. He flew towards the fishing town, dressed in just his green scaled briefs, golden belt and gold bracers. Though in his hands was the Mystical Trident of Posiedon, a magical weapon that gave him control over the waters themselves. As soon as the creature was in sight he dove straight down into the water of the Hudson River. The reason was too fold, to hydrate himself and bring his strength up to its most powerful levels. The second was to get eyes on the creature so he could see exactly what it was that he was up against, for his vision was unparalleled beneath the waves and should allow him, at still a mile out from the abominable creature, to see it clearly. LIVE ON GBS-2 NEWS "Gale, it appears that some sort of 'creature' is in the Stratfordburg river in New York. Check out these tweets--" Fingers snap, "Clark, /Clark/.." Clark Kent jolts in his seat jamming his knee painfully on the edge of his desk. He bends forward in his office chair he rubs his hands over his knee trying to dull the sharp pain, "S..Sorry Lois. I was distracted by something across the street.." "Jesus, Clark, are you okay?" she continues without waiting for his answer, "..what are we doing for lunch.." Clark stands awkwardly wincing as he puts weight upon his knee, "Gee, I'm sorry Lois, I'm not feeling so hot today. I think I ate something that disagreed with me I--" He puts the palms of his hand over his belly and awkwardly tries to scoot in the tiny space between Lois and his desk, "I--I---really need to go to the bathroom..excuse me." and starts off down the hallway half-tripping over his own feet as he limps away. Lois Lane rolls her eyes in faux offense, "That's more information than I needed, Smallville." she says. Minutes later, a blur of red and blue stretches in from over the horizon and then in a flicker of pseudo-motion it seems to slow impossibly fast. It takes only a moment for him to assess the condition of the town - a rapid movement of his eyes penetrating the various structures near-to the monster as he memorizes the positions of the citizens who are too close to the bank for his liking. Superman descends feet first touching down near the greatest of the fires and he inhales puffing his thick chest out before exhaling. A rush of wind whips down the bank but where as one-by-one fires typically extinguish themselves when he does this these instead seem to fight the force of his breath.. ..those that are closest do dwindle and spark finally dying but the while those mid-range seem to fade but re-appear the moment he relents. Those further out seem completely unaffected. Superboy was clueless about monster attacks, just soaking up some sun on a rooftop. Then he noticed Superman flying overhead. A little internal debate and he switched from swimsuit to costume and took off after Kal. Rather than moving to land by Clark, he ends up stopping in mid air at the sight of the giant monsters. "Holy hell!" he exclaims, eyes wide behind his sunglasses. He floats for a moment before zipping down to land near Superman. "Hey, Supes. What the heck is goin' on?" Jo was finishing a workout in the personal fitness level of the Helicarrier when the alarm went off. He quickly dressed and ran up to the control deck to find out what was going on. He soon saw what was on the screen and looked at the coordinates showing on the situation map. Using his Ultra Vision, he confirmed the threat, then switched to Ultra Speed to head up to the launch deck. Switching to flight he was on his way. Hovering over the area using his flight ring, he tried to decide the best option. The water is cold--bitterly so. It's also far brighter than it should be; not only are the yellow spots on the awakened monster's body giving off light, so is a bunch of other stuff down there, from the reflective and manyfaceted tendrils of deepwater plants to the shining, translucent bodies of cat-sized toads with gossamer wings and whip tongues. Not everything beneath the water is different, not even most things; it's hard to miss the things that are, though. The greatest of them still has several meters submerged by the time Namor dives, but he can see its great, barbed tail whipping violently towards the surface; there are tiny, almost vestigial lizard legs dangling near the base of the tail. It was already confused; senseing something as big as the amorphous Gabriel growing up over the shore just pissed it off, sending its fight or flight response into overdrive. Almost everything else around Namor - natural or otherwise - is swimming, slithering or paddling away from the monster's presence as quickly as it can manage, even from a mile away. Just before the last of it leaves the water, though, two points of it glow brilliantly for a second before spewing two streams of golden fireworks towards the Avenging Son; maybe they had the right idea. Above the water, the monster half-flaps, half-slithers on an erratic upward arc. More fireworks launch from its body, and now that it has some altitude, a few are actually on trajectories that take them towards civilians, rather than scenery. They dissipate as they fly, but they aren't moving too quickly to be intercepted by someone with good reflexes--or better yet, super reflexes. The stubborn fires that have already been set twist and dance every which way as Superman works to extinguish them; they can't survive the overwhelming force and arctic chill of his breath forever - especially once he closes in on the ones further away - but there's something almost mocking in the way that they resist sputtering out in the meanwhile. The creature isn't overly concerned with anything but the blob growing in the distance; as spikes begin taking shape along Gabriel's back, the monster flexes its jaws as wide as they'll go - not quite wide enough to swallow the shapeshifter hold, thankfully, but still enough to possibly cause concern, if it turns out that it's hungry - and roars its challenge. The sheer force of the sound pushes grass flat and bends trees, but the effects should be somewhat diminished by the time they reach Gabriel--if still sufficient to bruise and stagger. About ten seconds or so after the transformation started the blob finally solidifies into a real life Godzilla. The spkies on its back, which look like knives made by a giant blacksmith having a nightmare, glow an eerie neon blue along the edges and flickers of energy slither out from between his teeth. As large and immposing as Godzilla might be he /still/ looks a bit on the small side when compared to the giant river monster and he looks dazed and confused as well. A state that is not helped as he's hit by a solid wall of sound, sending him staggering a few steps back, crushing trees in his wake before he ends up toppling backwards into the river, causing ten foot waves to splash away to either side of his falling body. Namor frowned as he saw the beast fully. He almost wished he had brought the Horn of Proteus, what he wouldn't give to have Giganto at his beck and call at this moment. It would be like one of those movies that She-Hulk liked so much, what were they called? Kaiju movies? And isn't that second large monster that has appeared supposed to be the star of many of them? That confused him a bit, Jennifer had told him they were not real. Maybe that was a ploy to get him to stop pointing out the inaccuracies of the beasts. As the two spouts of golden fireworks head towards him Namor bursts back out of the water and flies closer to the town that the creature has endangered. He held the Trident of Poseidon hard in his hand as the waves created by the King of Monsters started to rise. He pointed it to the waves heading for the town itself and willed the water to fall. Hoping to minimize the damage and loss of life for the talking monkeys. It was an odd feeling for him still, fighting to save the same surface dwellers he would have tried to kill just a year ago. Releasing the last bit of air from his lungs, Superman takes another breath so he can speak and then looks to Kon-El, "I'm not sure." He admits then giving the people who are marveling at the whole affair a sobering look, "We need to evacuate the people inland. This creature doesn't seem to want to intentionally harm anyone but its only a matter of time until it accidentally sets someone on fire." Then, "Our first priority is evacuating everyone to a minimum safe distance and then we can figure out what to do about the source of the problem.." Suddenly he lifts off the ground, "I'd rather it throw fireballs from the river than start rampaging through town.." "We've got company." Superman proclaims arcing upward with one arm outstretched, "Let's make sure we're all on the same page." He accelerates rapidly, "Godzilla is a friendly.." he adds knowing that Kon can still hear him and his intent is clear given that he's flying towards....well, Godzilla...whose very appearance is likely to aid in the evacuation but as equally likely to bring chaos to a touchy situation. Damn, too late. Then he hears hundreds of creatures darts outward through the water as the beast stirs. It's mighty roar sending Godzilla into the water and bowling him momentarily through the air. The Man of Steel recovers and comes around. "Gabriel.." Super-powered lungs cause his voice to carry a long way as he suddenly diverts course diverting down towards the bank again, "Move away from the city. Let it chase you into the open ground. Think cold, It looks amphibian." In a low strafing run over the bank he hopes Gabriel will occupy -- between the river and the city -- he purses his lips and turns his head towards the water. A blast of frigid white air cones outwards immediately freezing the chemically treated waters which turns into a greasy ice as if it were fifty-below zero. He's not trying to freeze the creature in the water. He's trying to force it to take the path of least resistance -- turn it to where there are fewer people. "Company's kinda obvious," Kon replies, scanning the area and making note of where people are. He switches to X-ray vision a few times to check through things for anyone hiding. "How is Godzilla a friendly?" he asks the universe at large. He's not going after the monsters though. Evacuating people is the priority after all. "Heads up, people! Time to go! Not time to be standin' around tryin' to be in Cloverfield 2!" he calls. "Remember the camera guys died and the movie sucked anyway," he adds, calling out to the crowds and trying to direct them away. When he sees fire heading towards some people, Kon curses under his breath and flies to scoop them out of harm's way at super speed. With Superman and Superboy visible on the scene, there are enough heavyweights to keep the creature busy a while. That means the best use Ultra Boy can make of himself for the moment is removing the civilians from the likely battlefield. "Ultra Speed" Jo states, focusing his power. He may not be the Flash, but his speed is equal to Superman when he is using it, and more than fast enough to move all the civilians in the area back away from the monster at least a mile quickly. Well. It'll be a long time before anyone in Stratfordburg complains about being bored; in the last few minutes, they've been extras in the cast of a kaiju movie, a fiery disaster film, and now, as the Sub-Mariner asserts total control over the walls of water surging towards their town-- --well, it's still a disaster film, but now it's rather more immediate than the death by inches threatened by the monster's fires. At least, until Namor drives it all back into the riverbed. Some of it still splashes past both banks as it sloshes violently back into place, but the disaster is by and large averted. There are still a few people who strain to keep their cameras pointed towards the action as they're whisked away by Ultra Boy and Superboy, but they're about as stubborn as it gets; by this point, the vast majority of the stragglers are more than happy to be away from the fire and tidal waves and crashing monsters. A few of them do still shout at each other about how cool - and scary, of course, but definitely cool - this all is as they're carried in the superteens' arms. While the disastrous effects of its mere existence are mitigated, the monster feels itself being pushed away from the town and towards Gabezilla each time its undulating bulk dips into the water. Some of the eyes along its side roll and dart around the surface of the water until they spot the sheet of ice, which elicits another terraforming roar and a salvo of golden fire aimed at the guiding wall. It doesn't actually fight being nudged along by Superman - it still wants to try and fight Gabe, after all - but that doesn't mean that it enjoys it; its front half loops curls back after another flap of its fins, and while the back half of its body continues slithering towards the empty bank, the upper half sprays fire golden fire through the sky, trying to burn out the bullet-fast, red and blue thing that seems to accompany the ice everywhere it expands. Gabe, it seems, will have a few moments to catch his breath--even if he might not be able to unleash it. The dunk has the salubrious effect of shocking Gabezilla out of the daze caused by the massive transformation and the monster's attack. Taking advantage of the fact that Godzilla is also an amphibian he swims as fast as he can underwater to launch itself at the river monster from underneath. As Gabezilla comes surging out of the water his aim is clear. Do his best to turn this whole scenario into a kaiju wrestling show. He wraps his arms around the serpentine monster's jaws, doing his best to hold them shut while he drags it further away from town, following Superman's instructions. Kinda. Namor had little care of the rushing Super-Peoples and their work. He was aware of them, even faced down against Superman briefly a while back, but he had his own work to do here. All he cared about was the two giant monsters and containing the damage. He overheard over the chaos below blaming him for what is going on. It was a fair point, just a year ago Namor had done something much similar to all of this. Still the pride of the Sea King was great and his frown turned deeper, more heavily set, "Ungrateful talking monkeys!" he says angrily, "Believing you know the motivations of your betters." Unknown to Namor there was a magical taint in water he was in just moments ago, a magical pollution that was infecting the cells of his body, bring out some irrationality in him. Perhaps he would just let the next tidal wave go. Let their Supermen handle saving their Dry asses. The Sub-Mariner however would end this threat, he knew what he would do. He would show the surface dwellers the power of Atlantis. His frown turned to a sneer as he shouted his battle cry, "IMPERIOUS REX!" And flew towards the massive beast the trident held forward the intent to ram it so deeply into creature that he could did himself into it and rip out it's internal organs! And when this one was dead, he'd deal with the so-called King of Monsters, Godzilla! Racing alongside the creatures, Superman continues to exhales a steady stream of sub-zero air. He spares a moment to look back and assure that Kon-El and Jo Nah have managed to hasten the evacuation but when he turns back he finds that it is about to rain fire. The Man of Steel is no magician but while the flame's resistance to his breath might have been a chemical property the very fact that he could feel enough of their ambient heat to be a bit uncomfortable in their presence confirms that they're not something he wants to tangle with directly -- if he can help it. Weaving away from the deadly gout of flame he picks up enough speed to cork-screw around the blast and then break off into the open sky so that he's clear from the river when Gabriel bursts forth and begins to wrestle with the thing. It's true that Superman had been aiming for more carrot and less stick. Then Namor attacks it with a Trident. Okay, so now we're just going stick. Superman drifts backwards for a moment. Surveying the area. Assessing the crowd. Assessing these attacks. Just Assessing.. "Hey, I get that the whole giant monster thing is cool but save it for when you're somewhere that ya won't get squished or torched!" Superboy remarks to some of the people he evacuates. He spots Jo as he's flying and frowns a moment. "Dude, what the hell are you wearin'?" he asks as he passes Ultraboy. When it looks like they're getting the last of the civilians out of harm's way, Kon takes a moment to look around as well. "Hey," he gets an idea, talking to one of the people rescued. "Any clue why your town's buckin' to do better than the latest Godzilla movie all of a sudden?" Jo switches powers once everyone in sight is clear, "Ultra Vision." He checks the area for hidden people who might still be harmed first. Not finding any, fortunately, he turns his vision on the strange creature. Alien biology is not his best subject, but possibly he can find some kind of nerve plexus that might send the creature into uncosciousness. Of course, any such that he can find is going to be deeply buried...he will probably have to show Superman where it is if he finds it and let the Kryptonian apply his combined strength, speed, and intellect to strike it correctly. The sunny stream of fire is squeezed off like the water in a bent hose when Gabezilla wraps its scaly arms around the broad-headed beast's jaws, giving the Man of Steel some relief. Its upper half whips to and fro in the King of Monsters' grasp, struggling to force its way free so that it can properly express its anger with flame and thundrous roaring. There's rapid-fire blinking all across its madly writhing surface; it still wants to go where it was being pushed, and being held - by the thing it was going to try and eat, no less - is just agitating it further. When Gabe eventually comes down, more water surges into the air around his feet; there aren't any people in the shadow of the water this time, but there are still a few empty buildings scattered around near the edge of its reach. Their owners might just have to hope that whatever insurance they might have covers the damage, though, because the Trident of Poseidon is shredding through layer after faintly luminous layer of mystically mutated blood and tissue as Namor goes full Avenging Son on the monster. Its blood is in several different colors - purple, orange, green, black, on top of the expected red - and some of it actually sparkles in the moonlight as it sprays over the water. It isn't a deathblow, exactly, but it's a terrible wound--and with Gabe holding its jaws, it can't do much more to defend itself than slice its barbed tail wildly through the air as it thrashes in agony. Depending on how familiar Ultra Boy is with 21st century river biology, he might be able to suss out that the creature has a lot in common with the salamander. And several species of fish, and even a few kinds of plant-life, all seemingly run through a blender and cut with compounds that can't be found in any known textbook or database; finding a random nerve cluster to hit is mostly just a matter of persistence and knowing what to look for, because its gestalt physiology is otherwise illogical. When Jo does find and strike the right target, the thrashing intensifies, briefly, and then that part of its body begins to go limp. The stiffness spreads out in both directions from there, albeit slowly; it's a big creature, and its nervous system isn't exactly sophisticated. "I don't know," the woman Kon questions sputters, "It just--the river was glowing, one day last week, you know? Just out of nowhere. And it'd send up these--" She gestures towards one of the golden fires nearer to the river. "--fireworks, only they were all different, and nothing ever got set on fire. And we just--watched." She leans past the Boy of Steel to look around for a frantic moment, then meets his eye again and adds, "It was, I don't know, it was cool, but this--" She gestures vaguely towards the river. "... let's just say I liked it better before things were exciting." Gabezilla holds onto the river monster as long as he can, fighting against the thrashing but even as big as he is he's still outweighed by a few tons. And he finally looses his grip as Namor cuts into the monster, causing an extra strong lashing of the monster's head. The building owners' insurance policies might cover water damage but one owner completely runs out of luck as Gabezilla goes flying and lands on top of the closest building, crushing it and everything inside it. Gabriel's relative inexperience kicks in at almost the worst possible time. As he struggles to get up his tail clips a snail on the riverbed and suddly he's melting back into protoplasm and starts to quickly shrink. Namor spun around as the creature's tail thrashed around and went airborn before spinning the Trident around and slashing the thing's tail hoping to slice it off in one single blow. Namor himself wasn't in a frenzy or anything like that, but the instability inside him being created by the pollution on his skin is sick and tired of being unappreciated by this modern world. In his era, heroes were respected and applauded. Even he himself, how had battled the Original Human Torch and was an enemy to the surface was lauded as a hero when he joined the Invaders. He had hoped being part of the Infinite would give him the same respect but it was not. After getting the tail he turned back around to the Monster and stabbed it it's back again! He was Namor! Son of Fen! One of the Kings of Atlantis! It's Avenging Son! And these talking monkey continue to treat him like he was the villain! He would have no more of this! Don't these Dry realize if it weren't for a few members of their pitiful race he would have long ago conquered them! The would be better off if he did he felt some days. Namor paid no attention Gabezilla or any of the others, first this monster would die and then if any one wanted to get in his way. They were more than welcome to be next. For a moment, Superman hovers mid-air his red cape billowing majestically outward from eddies of air forced passed him through the epic struggle below. Beneath the curl of hair over his forehead the Man of Steel's eyes narrow slightly in silent observance of the internal damage which Namor's haste has wrought upon the creature and upon the town. He can see the fluids rapidly evacuating the creature's tissues as whatever twisted structure acts as a heart gets perceptively slower, and slower, within its chest. Whatever toxic sludge had powered this beast its no longer confined within the waters. There only thing he can hope to do is to mitigate the ecological damage -- and so he acts. Superman accelerates to a moderate speed as the creature starts to stiffen waiting until its thrashing has subsided and it begins to give into its own weight. He is unwilling to risk cauterizing the wound for fear of setting the entire river on fire he sweeps in and clutches the creature's head. Where the head will go the body will follow.. ..tiny as he seems by comparison Superman attempts to fully support the creature's weight guiding it gently back down to the waters which birthed it. Where the head goes the body shall follow, Superman carefully lowers the creature into eternal slumber. "And what started up all the fire works? Couple months early for thr 4th," Kon replies, using his TTK to try to 'fold' some dirt up and over onto one of the fires to smother it. When he sees all the damages caused by Namor and Gabezilla, Kon scowls. "Hold that thought," he offers to the woman before blurring off. He joins Superman as quickly as he can with trying to lift and move the creature to keep it from crushing anything else below. He's keeping his TTK up to keep the blood off himself, just not wanting to be a mess as he helps move the creature. While Jo wonders, from his observations, whether his is actually a single creature or some kind of composite amalgam, it does not stop him from finding a key nexus and applying his speed to reach it and then his strength to hit it with enough force to stun, knock out, or even paralyze the creature (depending on how exactly the body responds to the attack on something like this). Of course, the speed of nerve conduction is such it will take a while for parts of the creature to even notice. Jo is glad he is getting his fighting skills back in shape, the last two times out he wound up getting injured. So far, he is avoiding that this time. If this is some kind of composite creature, there is a good chance it will fall apart into it's component parts, it will be interesting to see if that is the result. Jo keeps up the pressure on the nerve plexus...more or less. He gets thrown off more than once, but his flight ring lets him fly quickly back. As a result, the pressure is kept up most of the time, causing progressively larger areas of the creature to become immobile. When Superman starts trying to move the creature, Jo adds his strength as best he can to the effort, without letting up the pressure he is applying. It does not make him terribly effective at lifting. Since its head is free, the monster is able to release one last burst of flame when Namor hacks its tail off; luckily, it's pointing up as it does so, its muscles briefly frozen in agony. The fire looks like a golden fountain spouting from its reptilian jaws, but it doesn't ever threaten to hit the citizens or their town. By the time the Trident is driven through its body again, the massive blood loss compounded with Jo's paralyzing blow have rendered it unable to do much more than fall limp, the life seeming to leave its dripping body in sections. Thanks to Ultra Boy and Superman, its worrisome bulk isn't ever more than a passing threat to the town either; the two super(ultra-)strong heroes guide the monster's parts safely into the freezing river, much to the relief of those with homes near its bank. If either were to look hard enough, they might notice the thoroughly unnatural compounds bonded with some of the H2O molecules composing the river; the taint is rather broad in effect, but it's not very highly concentrated in the water at all. The soil, in fact, has the worse of it, and from there it accumulated in the plants and algae, which were eaten by small fish, which were in turn eaten by bigger ones, and so on. Most organisms are unchanged, but carrying the pollutants in various trace amounts; the things that are different are those that have had substantial amounts of it. Months worth, easily. "Nothing," the woman says to Kon. "It just--happened. I mean, people swim in the river sometimes, but it's closed a lot--nobody really fishes there anymore unless they're stubborn, but there wasn't anything weird until, you know. The fireworks. Mostly, we just kind of let it do its thing since the drilling accident or whatever back in '06; the mayor, and those government people all say it's safe, but. You know." She shoots the river a meaningful look, then returns her attention back to Superboy... only for her eyes to quickly dart back towards the river. After a moment, she begins turning in place, looking increasingly confused. "Where--where's the other one?" she wonders, a hint of fear rising in her voice. Her eyes then stop on Namor for a long moment, and then rather than continue her search, she looks to Superboy again and quietly wonders, "He's not--he's--okay, right?" of the Sub-Mariner. Now that things are--slightly--safer - Namor is still flying around with a trident - a few more people feel comfortable enough to get snaps of the heroes on the scene. On the up side, the chatter is leaning warm and positive towards all of them, now that the danger is over, and despite the initial confusion with the tidal wave, most of the talk around Namor in particular is about how badass it was when he stabbed that monster with that trident. As Gabriel shrinks, the woman who owned the convenience store he crushed runs up; she'd been waiting the whole thing out with a few friends and family a ways away, but it was hard not to notice her business being levelled. "What the hell?!" the store owner shouts as she gets closer. "What happ--where's--" As hard as the bewildered woman might search to figure out who she can blame for her store being crushed, the guilty shapeshifter-turned-snail will go safely unnoticed. Having laid the creature to rest Superman drifts backward and passes his hands over one another to clean off any gunk which might have accumulated through the process, "Thank you.." he says to Superboy, "I appreciate you following me out here for this" Then, to Jo Nah, "..and to you Ultra Boy that was quick thinking to go after its nerve cluster." Likely he would have some platitude for the King of Atlantis but that fellow has departed and given how this ended he doesn't feel gracious enough to chase him down. Instead Superman takes possession of one of the ice-coolers which had been used when this area was a party-zone before the arrival of the monster. He breathes cold air inside, solidifying the melting ice, and then selects handfuls of algae and fish which are then locked inside the cooler, "Long flight back.." The Man of Steel gives a wry grin at his own joke, "Gabriel, you did well. I was skeptical of your plan at first but it seems to have worked out as well as any -- thank you." Now having appreciated everyone Superman flies away with his ice-cooler. Kon follows after Superman, TTK getting any sludge and mess off him. "Don't mention it. More fun than just layin' around all day," Superboy replies. He watches Superman start gathering samples. "I"m gonna stick around here and help clean up for a bit. I'll swing by you know where later," he offers to Clark, meaning the Fortress. He heads over to the woman he was talking to and nods a little. "He's alright...just has issues. Don't worry about it. 'Sides, I'm here to protect ya," he turns on the charm. "Now let's get ya somewhere safe..." he offers a hand to the woman so he can carry her away from the immediate area and then get to work helping to clean up the damages that need immediate attention. Category:Log